This area is reserved for the tidbits I know hope will be of interest to my readers. Check back often for regular updates.

Check out this article about the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomena, including a list of organizations which strongly oppose this sick trend, and have implemented various means of helping women who have been sexually victimized.

Were you raised by a narcissist? Chances are you were if you suffered any form of childhood abuse. The Little Red Survivor website is filled with excellent articles examining the many faces of narcissism.

It's been a long time coming---7 years to be exact---but finally email notifications for new BD posts is available. Sign up today and never again miss another post. You know you want to!

Kate Is Rising has an excellent Survivors Resources page which directs you to numerous websites dealing with issues of abuse, healing and recovery. Please bear in mind that the information on these pages may be triggering.

There's lots of good stuff at the Dissociation Blog Showcase, including a list of 180 blogs dealing with some aspect of this disorder.

On the Overcoming Sexual Abuse site there's an article entitled, "It's Not About You Mom" which I could have written myself. I bet many of my readers could say the same!

Where do I go when another personality takes over? Is there even a "me" at all or is that merely an illusion? My therapist of several years ago told me that I'm a separate personality from all of my insiders. I wonder though. Wonder if that's par for the course for multiples. She only had about 5 months, once a month, to work with me, so maybe that was a lucky guess on her part.

Some days it feels as if no one's home inside. A great emptiness looms and there are no voices to keep me company throughout my day. I long for the sound of Jenny's laughter, but remember she's still in hiding. Mrs. Homebody, my system's resident caretaker, must have her hands full these days. I don't hear much from her either. And Vava (pronounced VAY-va) my 13 year old, very likely has gone in search of Jenny and my missing comedian, Funnygal. She and Jenny are the best of friends, despite their age difference (Jenny is 7.)

This is what gets me about integration: wouldn't you keenly miss your individual parts? Yes I know that some say those parts would all still be there, you just wouldn't sense or feel them as keenly as before integration. I don't want to experience all my parts as one lump sum. Since I never have before, why would I ever want to do so? Just the thought raises my anxiety level, makes me think of things dying and sorrowed over.

My parts and I have had many adjustments to make recently. One of the reasons I chose this new template for my blog is because pink is Vava's favorite color. The Little One, who is pre-verbal, is also drawn to this color. Normally I would have help blogging but none of my writers are on hand to contribute their two cents worth. I know that change is extremely hard for them. The person I refer to as "I" tries to make things go as smoothly as possible, and to keep a stiff upper lip. But lately I wonder, who am I doing this for? Everyone's scattered to their hidey-holes, so what difference does it make if I buck up or crumple come nightfall?

I feel myself slip slidin' away just like the others, and I hope there is something to grab hold of before that happens.

(I feel as Jenny did when she wrote the following after we lost our dad and brothers, decades ago.)

Reader Comments (5)

oh beauty! of late my heart has been heavy for you, and i didnt know why. i felt you slipping, and thought i had offended you, or wearied you. now i know it was my spirit moved to pray for you. i dont know what having parts feels like, the way you have them. but i know what it feels like to have many faces, and to fell like im the illusion. what can i do for you, i dont know. but i am here just the same, if you need me. i still say it is wholeness we need, whether you intergrate or not. kïrstin♪

We decided against integration a long time ago, because we felt the same as you plus John had relationships with many different keepers and he said he would miss them also. The keepers who are deep inside may well have integrated into others, we do not know, we hear from them so very seldom,We too go through times when it seems many are drifting off to deeper recesses are back to times and places from long ago, but we have always got them back. To lose their senses and views would make us feel less than we are now, especially since we have learned, still learning we might add, to communicate and cooperate more than ever before. Why change things now were your words I believe, words we agree with.

Thanks for the kind words, Keepers and Kirstin. It does help to know I have support from my readers. I feel I didn't adequately express what I wanted to in this post. What I meant to get at, but I got distracted or another part took over, is that I don't know if there's even an original self--the one I was at birth--still alive inside of this body. This grieves me. My old therapist said that she is most likely still alive, but closely guarded by my parts who exist for that purpose. Either way, I don't know her, or know who she could have become.That's just something which comes with the territory, I'm hardly the only one dealing with such issues. I think sometimes I slip away because I (this person I refer to as "me) can no longer pretend.

As offensive as it sounds, I would give up DID in a heartbeat. If there was a pill to take and I'd be one tomorrow I'd take that pill, in a millisecond I'd take that pill with the assurance that I'd have the same humor, the same wonder, convictions and desires as I do now. We'd all still be together just on the same page in the same year and date. That's just my personal choice. As bad as it sounds to some, we desire a single mind. I did say we desire, not I, but we.

Pretending can be quite tiresome. I think that pretending to be this or that person feeds into self doubt and all the negatives we were told about ourselves. If we are "faking" being the original can we honestly say we aren't faking other things? That's the problem I have with pretending to be someone else. I need the truth in every instance so I can say without a doubt, I'm true and what happened to me is true. I guess that's just how I view pretending to be our original person. It feeds into the lies I was told. In actuality our hiding is a result of their lies and their willingness to dole out pain. Hiding or pretending to be the original is a copying skill not a forsaken virtue.